Apparatus for surface treatment of green clay



Feb. 14, 1939. A 5 B JONES 2,146,957

APPARATUS FOR SURFACE TREATMENT OF GREEN CLAY Filed July 6, 1937 3 Sheets-Sheet l Feb. 14, 1939. E B JONES 2,146,957

APPARATUS FOR SURFACE TREATMENT OF GREEN CLAY Filed July 6, 1957 5 Sheets-Sheet 2 Feb. 14, 1939. E B JONES 2,146,957

APPARATUS FOR SURFACE TREATMENT OF GREEN CLAY Filed July 6, 1957 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 Patented F eb., 14, 1939 UNITED STATES APPARATUS FOR SURFACE TREATMENT OF GREEN CLAY Edwin Barker Jones, Wallasey, England Application July 6, 1937, Serial No. 152,235 In Great Britain October 28, 1936 3 Claims. (Cl. 25-4) The present invention relates to the treatment of plastic materials, and is particularly applicable to the treatment before burning of green clay, shale or the like products such as bricks or tiles.

The chief object of the invention is to provide improved means for producing so-called facing bricks.

A further object of the invention is to provide an improved means'for producing facing bricks which will operate satisfactorily over a wide range of speed of the clay column. Certain known forms of apparatus for treating columns of clay will only operate satisfactorily up to certain fairly well defined clay column speeds and at higher speeds they operate somewhat unsatisfactorily and it is an object of the invention to avoid this disadvantage.

A further object of the invention is to provide an apparatus for the surface treatment before burning of green clay, shale or like products such as bricks, comprising means for moving the product along a predetermined path, a rotatable carrier spaced from said path with its axis of rotation inclined at an angle to the path of travel of the product, a number of beaters or fiails mounted on and movable relatively to said carrier and means for rotatably driving the carrier to cause the heaters or flails to extend outwards from the carrier under the action of centrifugal force, whereby to beat the product during its treatment.

The flails or beaters may consist of chains or alternatively they may consist of flexible arms or wires which may have small balls at their free ends adapted for engagement with the clay product. Again, instead of providing relatively small balls on the ends of the beater arms, the balls may, if desired, be eliminated and the ends of the arms bent over and the beating carried out by such ends of the arms, particularly where the beater arms are of fiat section material.

The fiails may be movable relatively to the carrier either by virtue of their mode of connection to the carrier or of their inherent flexibility or both.

Sand, powder, or other suitable comminuted facing material may be applied to the surface or surfaces of the products preferably before the beating action takes place but if desired it may be. applied simultaneously with or subsequent to the beating action.

The invention is more particularly described with reference to the accompanying somewhat diagrammatic drawings in which:-

Figure 1 is a side elevation,

Figure 2 an end elevation and Figures 3 and 4 are a side and end view respectively of a beater assembly.

Referring first of all to Figures 3 and 4, the

, c carrier consists of a roller I]! having circumbar I2 has a series of apertured lugs l3 through which a wire I4 is threaded. The chains [5 are mounted on the wires l4 and are spaced apart by the lugs l3. If desired, of course, a number of chains may be provided in the' space between each two lugs and such chains may be spaced apart by suitable distance pieces or washers.

A clay column is indicated by the numeral [6 and is movable in the direction indicated by the arrow ll. The roller I0 is disposed above the clay column and is mounted on shaft 20 driven by pulley 2|. Pulley 22 is a loose pulley. As will be observed, the roller I0 bearing the chains I5 is arranged with its axis of rotation at right angles to the direction of movement of the clay column.

An auxiliary shaft 23 is driven from shaft 20 through chain wheels and chain 24. has a side-faced cam 25 thereon, which engages with a roller 26 at one end of a lever 21 pivoted on a spindle 28. The other end of lever 21 has a fork 29 which engages the end 30 of roller i0. Thus by means of the cam 25 and lever 2'! the roller i0 is periodically axially displaced against the pressure of a spring 3| whereby to ensure irregularity of and to avoid readily perceptible repetition in the resultant configuration of the surface of the product.

For treating the side surfaces of the clay column vertical rollers 36 are arranged at each side of the path of travel of the column, such rollers having chains mounted thereon as described in connection with roller Ill. The rollers 36 are driven through bevel gear pairs 31, shaft'38 and chain 39 from the shaft 20. As in the case of the roller I0, each roller 36 is adapted for axial displacement during its rotation. The axial displacement is efiected, against the resistance of a spring 40, by means of rollers 4| mounted at the end of levers 42 fixedly connected to a rock-shaft 43 on which is secured an upwardly extending lever 44, provided at its end with a roller 45 adapted for engagement with a cam 46 mounted on the shaft 23. Thus the roller 36 and the chains attached thereto are periodically vertically displaced so as to vary the point of engagement of the respective chains with the clay.

Sand, powder or like facing material is supplied to the respective surfaces of the column from a hopper 5B and pipes 5|, 52, 53. For the v sake of clearness the ends only of pipes 52, 53

are indicated in Figure 2 and their connections to the hopper-are not shown. The flow of sand from the hopper into the pipe 5| is controlled by a slide 54 and a similar slide is provided for each of the pipes 52, 53. Excess sand supplied to the clay column falls on a sieve tray 55'from which Shaft 23 it passes into a receiving trough 56. The sieve tray is mounted on swing links 51 and is given a jigging motion by means of a lever 58 which is mounted on the oscillating shaft 43 and which at its free end is connected through a link 59 to a projection extending upwardly from the tray. From the space 56 the excess sand is conveyed by a worm conveyor 60 to an outer receiver 6| from whence it is raised by a bucket conveyor belt 62 and returned to the hopper 50.

The bucket conveyor 62 is driven by a pulley 63 mounted on the shaft I54 driven through a bevel gear pair 65 and chain 65 from the shaft 23. The conveyor 62 drives a pulley 61 at its, lower end which through a bevel gear pair 68 drives the worm conveyor 60.

The speed of rotation of the carrier has an important bearing upon the nature of the treatment and upon the finished appearance of the bricks. It has been found that using a roller of 3%" diameter as the carrier with its axis spaced 5% from the clay column and with chains about 4" long, a satisfactory appearance was obtained when the carrier'was rotated at 560 revs. per minute, and the clay column moved at 8-10 ft. per minute. In this case the links. of the chain were long and the links were formed of diameter wire.

I declare that what I claim is:-

1. Apparatus for the surface treatment before burning of green clay, shale or like products such as bricks, comprising means for moving the product along a predetermined path, a rotatable carrier spaced from said path with its axis of rotation inclined at an angle to the path of travel of the product, a number of beaters or flails mounted on and movable relatively to said carrier and means for rotatably driving the carrier to cause the beaters or flails to extend outwards from the carrier under the action of centrifugal force and thus to beat the product during its movement.

2. Apparatus for the surface treatment before burning of green clay, shale or like products such as bricks, comprising means for moving the product along a predetermined path, a rotatable carrier spaced from said path with its axis of rotation inclined at an angle to the path of travel of the product, a number of beaters or fiails mounted on and movable relatively to said carrier, means for rotatably driving the carrier to cause the beaters or flails to extend outwards from the carrier under the action of centrifugal force and thus to beat the product during its movement, and means for axially displacing the carrier during its rotation to ensure irregularity of and to avoid readily perceptible repetition in the resultant configuration of the surface of the product.

3. Apparatus for the surface treatment before burning of green clay, shale or like products such as bricks, comprising means for moving the product along a predetermined path, a rotatable carrier spaced from said path with its axis of rotation inclined at an angle to the path of travel of the product, a number of lengths of chain mounted on said carrier, and means for rotatably driving the carrier to cause the chains to extend outwards from the carrier under. the action of centrifugal force and thus to beat the product during its movement.

EDWIN BARKER JONES. 

